Violet-crowned Woodnymph

About the Violet-crowned Woodnymph

The crowned woodnymph (Thalurania colombica) or violet-crowned woodnymph, is a species of hummingbird in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is found from Belize and Guatemala to far-northern Peru.

The crowned woodnymph was formally described in 1843 by the French ornithologist Jules Bourcier from a specimen collected in Colombia. He coined the binomial name Ornismya colombica. This species is now placed in the genus Thalurania that was introduced by John Gould in 1848.

Seven subspecies are recognised: T. c. townsendi Ridgway, 1888 T. c. venusta (Gould, 1851) T. c. colombica (Bourcier, 1843) T. c. rostrifera Phelps & Phelps Jr, 1956 T. c. fannyae (Delattre & Bourcier, 1846) T. c. subtropicalis Griscom, 1932

T. c. verticeps (Gould, 1851) T. c. hypochlora Gould, 1871 From about 1992 until 2012 or 2013, T. c. fannyae was treated as a separate species, the green-crowned woodnymph, with T. c. subtropicalis and T. c. verticeps as subspecies. Some authors also treated T. c. hypochlora separately as the emerald-bellied woodnymph.

The Mexican woodnymph (Eupherusa ridgwayi) has sometimes been treated as a subspecies of the crowned woodnymph... Wikipedia →